Food security plan for Aboriginal land bears fruit

It's harvest time at one of Australia's most remote orchards, on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands of northwest South Australia.

Kenmore Park is an Indigenous community 460 kilometres south west of Alice Springs and is home to about 20 people.

On the southern edge are five very unusual acres; a thriving orchard of 140 apricot trees, 300 citrus trees and a block of red and green table grapes.

It was planted in 2005 by Brenton and Margaret Pope, a couple now in their eighties, and is designed to improve food security on the APY Lands, which cover about 100,000 square kilometres of Aboriginal-owned land.

Mr Pope says the orchard was set up to provide locally-produced food and employment opportunities to Anangu people into the future.

"When we first planted the garden, we told them, 'the day's coming when it will be like it was 45 years ago, when you lived without welfare and you had to work hard to eat,' Mr Pope said.

"We believe that day is returning. You've only got to watch the news a bit and I think it's getting closer.

"So we want to be ready to help bridge that transition and take supplies out to the communities, especially children.

"Fruit's been too costly for them."

It can be done, but if you don't have the blessing of your local community around you, you're wasting your time.

Brenton Pope, Kenmore Park

It's been another strong year for the orchard, which has produced four tonnes of apricots, six tonnes of grapes and hundreds of buckets of mandarins this season.

And some of the fruit is being supplied into Alice Springs this year with the help of social media.

"I was always a bit sceptical about Facebook, but I can see how it works now - amazing!

"One lady put it on Facebook and our load was pretty-well sold by the time we went home.

"The customer's getting them for about $3 a kilogram instead of probably about $10 at the supermarkets."

The orchard was established as a charitable organisation and is run completely off bore water and a solar power system.

Mr Pope says staffing and transportation remain the biggest challenges for the orchard.

"The problem is getting helpers - we've got to understand what we've done to Aboriginal culture since we gave them welfare," he said.

"It's destroyed the motivation to work.

"We're not critical, we just understand what's happened."

Mr Pope's focus for 2014 is to share their knowledge with surrounding communities in the hope of seeing other functioning orchards developed across Central Australia.

"Our vision is not just for the APY Lands," Mr Pope said.

"There's no point growing fruit and carting it 800 kilometres.

"I'd love to see something near Ernabella, out near Western Australia and one here.

"And I'd like to see vegetable gardens in every backyard!"

More than that, Mr Pope says he'd like to see more people investing in food production projects.

"We're getting a little old for the spade work, he said.

"We're both in our eighties but we have the experience and we want to pass it on to help other people set up.

"It can be done, but if you don't have the blessing of your local community you're wasting your time."